NDA not getting clear majority, so declare Nitish as PM face to form govt in New Delhi: JD-U

JD-U lawmaker Ghulam Rasool Balyavi has demanded to make Nitish as PM candidate

PATNA: Is the NDA headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi not getting majority this time?

The million-dollar question was being hotly debated in the media and the political circles for long but now the Janata Dal United (JD-U), a key ally of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), has formally confirmed it with a unique demand.

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The JD-U demand is that the party president and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar should be made the PM candidate since the NDA is not likely to get clear majority in the elections.

“NDA is not likely to get a clear majority and so if it wants to form its government in New Delhi it should declare Nitish Kumar as the PM candidate,” JD-U lawmaker and party minority face Ghulam Rasool Balyavi told the media on Thursday.

Baliyavi who is considered very close to the Bihar chief minister claims owing to secular image of Nitish Kumar quite many party political parties could consider supporting the NDA in government formation if it lacks majority after the elections.

Although it is not known if he had the support of the entire party in making such demand but the fact that he has made this demand for the second time in five months amply explains the ongoing power struggle within the NDA.

It’s but obvious now is that the BJP has reacted strongly to such talks and warned the leader against talking non-sense while two phases of polling on a total of 118 Lok Sabha seats are still left in the country.

“None should be in doubt anymore. Just as the rising sun is a certainty, Modi’s swearing-in as PM is sure and certain,” BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain told the media, reacting to JD-U leader demand.

Hussain who hails from Bihar has been prevented from contesting elections this time as his home Lok Sabha seat of Bhagalpur that he represented twice in the past has been given to the JD-U under the seat-sharing arrangement.

Nitish Kumar is said to be nursing prime ministerial for long and apparently it was over the issue that he had broken away from the NDA after 17 years of association in 2013. He had quit the NDA moments after Narendra Modi, then his arch-rival and chief minister of Gujarat, was projected as the NDA face.

Four years later, Kumar again returned to the NDA claiming he had no prime ministerial ambition and that there is none in the country who has the political ability to challenge Modi but the sudden development in the JD-U tells an altogether different story.

Observers say the prime ministerial ambition within Nitish Kumar appears surging again in the light of reports that the NDA is not gaining majority this time. BJP general secretary Ram Madhav himself has admitted in a media interview that the NDA may not get majority this time.

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